


Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches

by scrapbullet



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Crazy Lord Coward, Eating Disorders, Ficlet, Gen, Hallucinations, Insanity, M/M, Not Beta Read, Post-Movie(s), of a sort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 16:44:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5593507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapbullet/pseuds/scrapbullet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You are quite mad, my darling,” Henry says, voice a terrible mimicry of its low and husky nuance. His neck is broken, and so his head hangs at such an odd angle that at times Nicholas finds himself given to fits of laughter so violent they turn to weeping.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Miss Lucy Had Some Leeches

He wakes. There is no window for the blessed sun to shine through; he has only the footsteps of those outside his prison to discern the time of day, and they are faint to his ears as he shifts upon the hard mattress of his rickety cot. The metal creaks dangerously beneath his meagre weight but he cares little, straining to hear the irregular tap of boot on stone. The orderly possesses one leg longer than the other, and so his oddity is easy to pick out amongst the moaning wails and cries of those pitiful souls shackled away in adjoining rooms.

Why is he here? Where is Cousin Martha and her dear, foppish husband? They said they would come, when the butler had taken his arm and secured him in the hansom. They said they would, and with his hands so clenched his knuckles are white he had not felt the sting as his fingernails dug into the flesh of his palms.

Blood stains his shirt cuffs. They’d taken his mother of pearl cuff links from him, and he misses the cool smoothness of them against the pad of his thumb.

(“There is no more money,” Martha says, her eyes fever-bright and glassy with unshed tears, “your Father gambled it away and so we cannot send you to the kind of Institute you deserve. Darling Nicholas, I am so very sorry-”)

His mouth is dry. It fills with saliva as he hears that most beloved of noises - a high-pitched squeak of a wheel in desperate need of oiling - and with it comes the burnt smell of food and the wet slosh of water in a jug. The dear orderly with his limping gait slides a bowl of gruel and a cup of water through the bars, and Nicholas practically trips over his own feet to get to them. The water is stale, but cool, the food bitter, but hot and filling. It is more than what he received the day before, or the day before that, when the resident Doctor had decided a fast would be beneficial. 

It was not. There is a rat hidden behind a brick in the wall, quite dead; its belly empty of the soft organs within. That, and the beetles he’d plucked from their scurrying path, had filled a void within, at least so that he could sleep.

It had sated him, for a while, until he’d vomited it back up in a mess of pink and yellow and black; the taste acrid on his tongue.

It’s strange, how well he has adapted to being alone. Oh, there is the Doctor, of course, with his cold eyes and deft hands as he applies the salve to Nicholas’ back, skin hanging off muscle in gory ribbons, soothing the sting of infected tissue. And there is the orderly, too, though he says not a word and is wont to look any patient in the eye...

...Oh, and how could he possibly forget? It is so very hard to remember, when days flit by like they are mere minutes.

“You are quite mad, my darling,” Henry says, voice a terrible mimicry of its low and husky nuance. His neck is broken, and so his head hangs at such an odd angle that at times Nicholas finds himself given to fits of laughter so violent they turn to weeping. 

Oh, but he neglected to say; Henry does not visit often. It is distressing, to see such a noble man brought so low, and the disappointment on his lovers' face wracks Nicholas with interminable guilt.

Sometimes, though, Henry will give him a kiss.

 _Ah._ Cool fingers on his brow and the stench of cologne soothes the roiling in his belly. “I should have known,” Henry murmurs, and as he sighs there is a putrid stench of rot heavy in the air. “You are as weak as a newborn kitten. I should have drowned you in a burlap sack when I had the chance.”

Nicholas smiles, and it is beatific. “Yes, you should have.”

Henry hums a discordant agreement. His fingers press, _just so_ , and oh, good Lord, on the breath that passes from Henry’s lips to Nicholas’ own there is the sound of sweet music. It is theirs, and theirs only; a cadence enough to cause his chest to heave, breathless from the joy of it. 

He chokes, anointed with the blood of their blessed dead.


End file.
